When You Were Young
by SisiDraig - 2
Summary: A look at Brian's 15th Birthday ... because Brian's back story fasinates me and because I'm bored out of my skull with nothing to do. Wow! What a summary this is. Er, yeah ... so, read. if you want to! D


**DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING!**

**A/N: My laptops died ='(. Well, my chargers died, so all stories writen on my laptop are on a hault until i've got my new charger which will be a couple of days! ='( So, boredom obviously took over and I wrote this on another computer.**

**Don't yell at me for this one, I have no idea how it will go down and how far people will agree with this. I watched the series a lot now and Brian's childhood, though mentioned a lot, is sketchy in details. I, for example, don't actually think his dad beat him up. I think his dad hit his mum when drunk and I think they didn't really care about him ... but we don't really know.**

**Anyway ... here it is! THE BOREDOM MADE ME DO IT!**

* * *

It was a Sunday in May and Brian knew what that meant … arguments. It meant Church, it meant fights and it also meant it was his fifteenth fucking birthday, not that anyone in his goddamn family would even know about it. He sat up in bed and decided to give himself a birthday hand job before going downstairs. He pulled out the magazine with the picture of Patrick Swayze with his shirt off and relaxed into his pillows.

Quarter of an hour later, he crept down the stairs into the kitchen to scrounge together some kind of breakfast. He pulled out a loaf of bread and hunted the cupboards for the chocolate spread. He heard a door slam but he didn't even flinch. Doors were always slamming in this house, it was like muzak in a lift to him just unnoticeable background noise. He was a cool 6ft now but he still couldn't quite reach the back of top shelf where the spread was kept, so he dragged a chair over from the table and climbed up on it carefully.

He grabbed the spread turned around and there was his mother stood in the doorway. She was slumped against the side of the door clutching her chest as though she were having a heart attack. She was shaking a little and the left side of her face was bright red. Looked like Jack had taken his anger out on her already but Brian didn't care. He just clambered off the chair and pushed it back to the chair still pretty much ignoring his mother. Then she staggered into the kitchen and sat on the chair Brian had just finished with and sat down.

"Been shot?" Brian asked sarcastically as he pasted his bread with chocolate spread.

"Brian," his mother scowled. "Watch out for crumbs. You know how I feel about dirt."

Brian rolled his eyes and carelessly swiped his hand across the counter top spraying crumbs all over the kitchen floor.

"Brian," Joan scowled. "What is wrong with you?"

"Uh oh," he snarled. "Feeling angry Joanie? Better get on the bottle, it's gone 9."

And with that he walked out of the kitchen munching chocolate covered bread, dropping crumbs everywhere as he walked through the sitting room towards the stairs. Jack was sat on the sofa watching the Sunday game with bacon and egg sandwiches. He was dropping grease all over the place. Joan wouldn't mention that of course, she'd just keep nagging Brian.

"Stop dropping crumbs, at least get a plate." His mother shouted, half chasing, half staggering after him as far as the partitioning wall between the two rooms. Brian rolled his eyes muttering, "fuck off," under his breath. He was trying to get back up the stairs without being stopped by Jack and her yelling wasn't making the feat any easier.

"Brian!" His mother scolded.

It was then that Jack turned around.

"Shut up woman," he yelled, "I'm trying to watch the game."

Brian watched his mother shrink back into the kitchen, getting to her knees with a dustpan and brush. He would have felt bad but the woman was a bitch so he just carried on up the stairs with hardly a guilty twinge.

"Where you going sonny boy?" Jack demanded. "Don't you want to watch the game?"

"Not really dad," Brian said, taking another bite of his breakfast. "I was going to go to Michael's."

"Not watching the game?" Jack growled. "What are you? A fucking fairy."

"No," Brian spat back quickly. "I'm going over Michael's to watch the game," Brian amended quickly.

"You should watch the game with your old man," Jack said firmly. "It's family tradition. I'll drive you to Michael's straight after the game's finished. It's on the way to my bowling game."

"I thought you went bowling yesterday," Brian said carefully controlling his voice so it didn't spark his father's temper.

"Practice yesterday, tournament today."

"Right," Brian said, and then because he needed an excuse to get up to his bedroom and hide all evidence of his earlier birthday treat before his mother went in to tidy his room, he said "I'll just get a jumper." And ran up the stairs two at a time.

Unfortunately, it wasn't quick enough. He opened the door to his room, chewing on the final bit of his breakfast and immediately spat the food everywhere. There, sat on the very end corner of his bed, holding up the Patrick Swayze magazine was his fucking no good shit-stirring sister. She didn't smile or say good morning or even pretend to be polite she just looked around at the orgy of evidence around her and said calmly and with a bit of a smirk,

"you're a fag."

"Fuck you," Brian scowled, ripping the magazine of his sister.

"Oh my god," she exclaimed with a smirk. "You wait till I tell mom and dad," she grinned. "You're so fucked."

"You tell them this and I'll tell them _you_ had an abortion in October."

Claire's eyes went wide with horror.

"Yeah," Brian continued calmly. "I know about that." Then he smirked bitterly. "And you know how St Joan feels about abortion … it's the only fucking reason I'm here."

"Yeah, well I'm sure she'd have felt different if she'd known you were wind up a homo."

Brian's mouth drew into a tight line and he pointed a shaking arm at the door. "Get the _fuck _out of my room."

It took Brian a few minutes to compose himself. He was fuming, about as angry as he'd ever been and he needed to calm down. He threw his room into a relatively tidy state and then pulled out his only private place in the house, a box with a lock to which he always kept the key with him. He unlocked it and pulled out a joint and a lighter. He locked his bedroom door and led back on his bed. He took a long drag and held the smoke in his lungs for as long as he could before blowing out slowly. All around him were posters of half naked women, posters of Jack's favourite sport teams and a band that Jack told him were brilliant but Brian had thought were a bit shit. There was a crucifix near his door and the words 'Jesus loves you' on a wooden plaque beneath it. Brian smiled to himself when he saw that plaque because on the wallpaper beneath that, he'd scrawled 'not in a gay way'.

He took another hit and was finally feeling mellow when a loud banging at the door distracted him. It was Jack telling him it was half time and he had to come at watch the rest of the game because the score was 'tight' and someone Brian didn't care about looked great and a dead cert to score at least another touchdown and lead his team to the Super Bowl. Brian just rolled his eyes, stubbed out the joint and sprayed himself with half a can of deodorant to hide the smell before following his father downstairs and watching the rest of the game. Jack told him it was thrilling and Brian knew enough about football by now to know that this was a better game than most but he'd still rather be at Michael's house looking at pictures of the hottest guy in Debbie's fag mags.

::

The game finally ended and Jack told Brian to get his shoes on and get in the car. There was the usual 'you don't spend any time at home' dispute between Joan and Jack and then Claire announced she'd like a lift to her friend's house too. So that was how the three of them, ended up in Jack's family hatchback driving to the bowling game. Brian was under no illusions that Jack would drop him off near Michael's house, he'd just drop him off at the closest point to Michael's house on his own route to the bowling alley.

"What time will you be back sonny boy?" Jack asked, looking in the mirror so he could get eye contact with his son in the backseats.

"I dunno," Brian shrugged. "Late."

"You going out?"

"Probably."

"On the look out for the ladies?"

"Something like that."

"You haven't gotten yourself stuck with girlfriend have you son?"

"Don't worry dad," Claire smirked, "Brian doesn't do girlfriends, do you Brian?"

The two sibling's glared at each other until Brian said, "I just don't want to get tied down."

"Smart lad," Jack said proudly, "right, here's your stop." Brian looked out the window, he was the wrong end of liberty avenue but it would be a relatively painless walk to Michael's. "Now you be careful sonny boy, you gotta walk past a load of fags. Keep your wits about you."

"Sure dad," Brian said. As soon as he opened the car door someone yelled at him and said hello. It was a trick from the other day but Brian ignored him as best he could. Claire of course, refused to ignore it.

"Friend of yours Brian?" She giggled.

"Don't be ridiculous," he snarled and then he slammed the door and began the walk. The car had barely pulled away before the man who'd called him to say hello came over to him.

"Hey Brian," he said. "Remember me?"

"Not really," Brian said. That wasn't true. Of course he remembered the guy, he'd given Brian a pretty shit blowjob in that backroom but Brian didn't do tricks twice. He'd made up the rule after he fucked one guy twice and then the guy decided they were in a relationship. Michael had thought it was hilarious, Brian had thought it was the worse possible scenario. He'd seen relationships in his life and they'd never ever worked. His dad fucked around on his mum and had two kids he didn't want because of it. Brian decided if he never got into a relationship then he could fuck who he wanted without any sneakiness. Then he'd learnt about backrooms and other guys just like him and he'd been in his element ever since. And okay, so he was only fifteen but he was one of those kids that looks older. He already looked eighteen and was regularly topping guys twice his age, on liberty avenue he lived the life he wanted to lead and he didn't want to entwine that life with anyone else … except Michael.

* * *

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Michael grinned as soon as Brian turned into the path of his best friend's garden. It took Brian a couple of moments to work out where the voice had come from when Michael's voice laughed, "look up."

Brian did as he was told and there, hanging out of the top window, was Michael holding a hand painted banner which read 'Happy 15th Birthday Brian' in scrawled, painted lettering and around the words were indistinguishable shapes and blobs as decoration.

"What the fuck is that?" Brian asked, quirking his eyebrow in bemused fondness.

"It's a sign," Michael said, unfailingly cheerful. "Come on in, Uncle Vic's made a cake too."

Brian just did as he was told, besides, he didn't want to be stood in the garden doing some bizarre gay version of Romeo and Juliette any longer.

He pushed the bright orange door and it swung open. Debbie barely ever locked her door, probably because no self-respecting thief would want to steal anything from this house. Brian had barely taken two steps into the house when Michael came half running, half falling down the stairs towards him. He flung his arms around Brian's neck and kissed him on the cheek.

"Happy Birthday," he repeated.

"Er, thanks," Brian said sort of awkwardly. He wasn't really sure what to do on a birthday, he couldn't remember celebrating a birthday for at least eight years and now this attention was a bit awkward.

"Come on," Michael grinned, grabbing Brian's wrist and dragging him towards the kitchen.

Brian's jaw dropped. The Novotny's kitchen had been decorated in rainbow coloured balloons and string. There was a massive cake in the middle which was vaguely in the shape of a cock. It was covered in white icing and had 'Happy Birthday Brian' written in beautiful calligraphic icing. Behind the cake, Debbie, Michael and Michael's Uncle Vic were beaming at him.

"What the fuck's going on?" Brian said slowly, his eyes shifting warily between the three beaming people ahead of him as though this were some great conspiracy.

"Well," Debbie said, coming around the table towards him and putting her arm around his shoulders, "I saw your mum at the school the other day and I…." Debbie paused as though trying to choose her words carefully. "Well, I got the impression she wasn't going to be doing much for your birthday." Brian looked at her in complete shock as she continued, "so we thought we'd throw a bit of a party for you."

Brian looked at it all for a moment; the cake, the decorations, even the box wrapped in sparkly paper. And suddenly he saw the whole thing differently. They weren't being nice, they were just pitying him. Poor Brian Kinney, the kid who's parents don't love him, the one who never has a birthday and he scowled.

"I don't want it," he said grimly, before turning and disappearing up the stairs towards Michael's room.

::

Michael looked at his mum in confusion. He couldn't understand why Brian wouldn't want a party. It was his birthday, this was what people did on their birthdays. Debbie just suggested he take the present up to Brian and try to talk to him.

Michael nodded and knocked carefully on his own bedroom door.

"It's your fucking room," Brian said bitterly. Michael kicked the door open carefully and looked at his friend. He was expecting to see his friend sprawled across his bed in his usual fashion but Brian wasn't there. He was stood over by a series of pictures pinned to the bottom of Michael's notice bored.

"What's this? A line of death?" He asked, dragging his finger over each photo hard so it left a slightly greasy mark behind.

"Huh?" Michael asked, setting the present on his bed and walking over behind his friend to see what he was looking at. "Oh," Michael said quietly as he looked at the photo chart his mum had made him. There was one photo from every birthday ever since he was born. Fifteen of them each one of him looking just a little older. In the last one, Brian had his arm around Michael's shoulders. He was happy enough at other people's birthday's just not his own.

"My sister found out," Brian said suddenly and seemingly from no where.

"What?" Michael asked.

"Claire's worked out that I'm a fag."

"How?"

"She broke into my room and found a picture of Patrick Swayze I'd been jacking off to."

"The dirty dancing photo?"

"Of course," Brian said, turning his back on the wall of photo's and allowing his eyes to fall on the present. "So, what did you get me?" He grinned, putting his arm around Michael's shoulder.

"Open it," the smaller boy beamed. Brian drew his lips into his mouth thoughtfully. He wasn't sure how he felt about the present so he pulled himself away from Michael and just sat on the bed next to present. Michael couldn't help smile.

"It won't hurt you," he promised. "Open it."

Brian shrugged a little. "Fuck it," he muttered, and began to rip the paper away from the box. Slowly but surely he revealed the CD walkman.

"Mikey," he said. "I can't take this."

"Yeah, you can. It's just like mine, see" Michael grinned, getting his own walkman from the bedside table.

"You show me yours I'll show you mine," Brian smirked. Michael blushed a little but Brian looked at the player and said, "it's prefect Mikey … and this is nice too." He smirked holding up the CD player. Michael blushed even harder then but he didn't have long to be embarrassed because it was at that moment Brian grabbed his face and kissed him chastely on the lips.

::

After that, Brian composed himself and went back downstairs with Michael. He smiled gratefully at Debbie and Vic. He blew out the candles and made a wish; _I wish I could stay with this family forever. _They ate the cock cake, which sparked lots of innuendo and jokes and then Debbie insisted Brian stay over. She rang Joan to tell her that she would make sure Brian got to school the next day. She didn't tell Brian that Joan hadn't realised he was missing or that she'd been slurring her words. She just told him he could stay and left it there.

There was a time when Debbie hadn't liked Brian Kinney. There was time when she'd thought he was bad news. A time when she'd believed that he was going to destroy her son but now she saw him as a boy who'd had a terrible childhood, who didn't feel loved or even liked. She'd even found herself admiring his ability to keep going, to carry on as though everything were normal. She allowed him to stay whenever he needed a break from his home, she tried to provide him with a second family and she saw in him that he'd grow up to be a great man.

Vic also stayed the night at Debbie's guest house. He spent the night on the comfy sofa … well, he spent half the night on the sofa because, no sooner had he drifted off to sleep, he was woken by the creaky front door. His first thought, of course, being that someone had broken up Vic called out,

"I've called the police and they're on their way."

To which a voice in the darkness replied, "that's the worst bluffing I've ever heard." And the light being flicked on revealed Brian at the doorway with Michael trying to hide behind him.

"What are you two doing?" Vic asked.

"We're going to Babylon," Brian grinned his most sizzling of smiles. And; "why don't you come with us?"

"No. And you shouldn't be going out either."

"Come on Vic," Brian said, his tone dropping to the same voice he used when he was pulling. This was the voice that seemed to allow him to do whatever he wanted and from the look on Vic's face, Michael could tell it was going to work again. "I wanna go out and _really _celebrate my birthday. You're a good looking gay man. You understand."

Vic frowned a little, his eyes flicking to the staircase as though considering his sister's wrath but he just smiled and said, "have a good time boys. Be back by two."

"Sure," Brian said, ushering Michael out of the house as soon as the door was shut Brian scowled. "There's no way in hell we'll be back by two. I'm Brian Kinney. No one gives me a curfew." And with that the two skipped, ran and strutted all the way to Babylon.

::

Brian danced, groped, kissed, fucked, got blown and generally had a brilliant time. Michael stood near the side watching his friend and trying half-heartedly to catch the attention of the odd muscle queen. He imagined pulling some hunky stud. He imagined making out on the dance floor. He imagined the man grabbing the waistband of his leather hot pants and dragging him towards the backroom and _that's _when it would happen. Brian Kinney would step in. He'd tell the other guy to 'fuck off' and he'd tell Michael he loved him before taking him somewhere breathtakingly romantic and making love to him …

"all night long."

"Huh?" Michael shocked awake from his day dream as he felt a hand cup his ass firmly. There was a man's face so close Michael could feel the breath, slightly fragranced with beer, ghosting over his ear as he spoke.

"I said, I wanna fuck you."

"Oh," Michael was somewhat flustered. He hadn't actually fucked anyone yet. He was kind of waiting for someone special … okay, he was waiting for Brian. "I, er … um." He stammered uselessly as the man grabbed the waistband of his leather hot pants and dragged him towards the back room. Now the man was an arms length away Michael could see that he was good looking. Maybe this would be good and then the man stopped walking and another man walked over. Brian. For a second, Michael thought his day dream was going to come true but then he saw the look on the nameless man's face and he realised he couldn't be more wrong.

"Hey Brian," the man said sort of needily.

"Do I know you?" Brian asked bluntly.

"We fucked at the baths last week." Michael felt sick at that revelation but Brian just looked disgusted.

"Me," he stabbed himself in the chest with his thumb, "and you," he pointed a finger at the man ahead of him. Then he shook his head disappointedly and said, "Christ, I must have been wasted."

"Hey fuck you!" The man yelled.

"Apparently you already have," Brian frowned, then his eyes drifted to Michael and he beamed. "Hey Mikey! You gonna fuck this? Great, I'll wait for you over," Brian looked out over Babylon for a suitable place to wait when his eyes fell on a hot twink checking him out, "I'll wait for you in his ass." Brian grinned and walked off to get his prey.

::

It was almost six in the morning when Brian and Michael stumbled into the house. Brian was wasted out if his mind and Michael wasn't far behind him. Vic was in the kitchen making breakfast and glared at the two of them as they collapsed onto the sofa.

"You're lucky your mother's got the early shift at the diner," he snarled. "I told you two."

"And that's how many guys I did," Brian slurred, shrugging drunkenly.

"Oh fuck," Vic groaned, as he clocked on to the state the two boys were really in. "You've got school in a few hours."

"We'll be fine for school," Brian slurred confidently. "We'll sober up as soon as we've eaten. But Mikey won't need to eat as much as me," Brian announced grandly, putting his arm around his friend's shoulders, "because he's already eaten cock." Then Brian gave Michael's ear a nibble before pulling their foreheads together as they giggled drunkenly.

Vic ran his hands through his hair in exasperation, trying to decide what to do for the best. In the end, he decided to make them a big stodgy cooked breakfast to soak up the alcohol and handed them the first of many pints of water they'd have to drink if they were going to make it to school.

He announced his plan and started cracking eggs into a frying pan.

"You're lucky Mikey," Brian said seriously. "You've got a cool family."

"I know," Michael giggled.

"My parents don't even love me."

"That's not true," Michael answered, still very giggly.

"Yeah, yeah it is," Brian sighed. "But I don't care. I fucking hate them."

"No you don't," Michael insisted because, in spite of everything he'd seen and heard about the Kinney household he still believed that there was nothing as important as family.

"I do. I definitely do." Then he put his hand on the back of Michael's head and turned his face towards him before whispering, "they didn't even know it was my birthday. But you" he pushed his finger hard into Michael's cheek, "you knew. That's why I love you Mikey."

"I love you too," Michael whispered, leaning forward trying to capture Brian's lips with his own. Brian leant back at the same pace giggling a little.

"What are you doing Mikey?"

"Nothing," his friend chuckled and then, as an excuse, "I'm really drunk."

"Yeah," Brian nodded carefully.

* * *

Both boys had letters home for being drunk and disorderly in lessons. Vic magically made Michael's letter disappear before Debbie ever found it. Joan and Jack ignore the letter like they ignored everything else about their son and his life. Brian even pinned the letter to the fridge door because by now, any kind of emotion towards him would be better than the apathetic indifference they treated him with him at the moment but his dad had read the first line 'to the parents of Brian Kinney' and gone to get a second bottle of wine.

By the time she woke up from her blackout, she'd completely forgotten about the letter. Jack had seen it and promised to 'deal with the situation' when he got back of his one-to-one 'business trip' with his secretary in the Maldives for a fortnight but by the time he got back he'd completely forgotten about his son's drunkenness and Brian had started to spend so little time at his own home that his parents were even less aware of their son, if that were at all possible.


End file.
